Another Mayor Gets His Priorities All Screwed Up

Why Do They Keep Electing These Guys?

FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS, MAYOR Will Flanagan has some great ideas on how to spend the city’s precious tax dollars, and public safety doesn’t seem to be one of them.

Mayor Flanagan (WPRI)

In 2010 the city received a Federal matching funds grant for $14 million and part of that money was used to hire firefighters and bring the uniformed force up to minimum standards. Now it’s four years later and the funds have run out. Unfortunately for the citizens of Fall River, the elected officials never bothered to budget enough funds to maintain the fire department at a safe level as the grant was tapering off.

Now the money has gone and so have 25 firefighters. Currently the work force stands at 175 with 164 of them assigned to run six engines and three ladders. Eight veteran firefighters voluntarily took an early-out retirement offer to help reduce the number of FFs that will need to be laid off. Mayor Flanagan says that the city needs 200 firefighters to maintain minimum staffing levels. until then they will rely on overtime and mutual aid to make up the deficiencies at fires.

WPRI-TV filed this video report:

Curiously, the mayor’s plans for the city’s future include building a large, new and state-of-the-art sports venue along the waterfront to hopefully host some 2024 Olympics games. Boston is one of the cities that are applying to host the games that year and last week WPRV reported:

Flanagan touted Fall River’s “rich tradition of excellence in sports” and said hosting the Olympics “would be a monumental addition to the proud history that our fair city has already established in the sports world.”

Taking into consideration that absolutely no city has ever broken even, or come close to it, on the Olympics, you have to wonder just what their priorities are in Fall River. As to their “proud history” established in the sports world, as best we can tell, their most famous athlete was notorious skater Lizzie Borden.

Miss Borden

Hat tip to Frank B.

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